A CLOSE FAMILY

Family Hiking

Our first family hike of the season! Just a short one to the waterfall up from our house, but it was a good warm-up :). We bought a back pack for Reese and both girls we SO excited to be in packs. They LOVED it. We also brought Penny along. I didn't really want to but Cade convinced me and she wasn't too bad. It was fun to have the whole family. We'll have lots more hikes this summer. I'm so excited for all the outdoor activities to come. I LOVE summer!!

Just like the first time we took Emma on a hike two years ago...completely out by the end of the hike! At least she likes her back pack :).

Grandma Close Comes to Visit

We love when Grandma Close comes to visit. This time Emma knew that if she went poo in the potty five times, she would get a pony ride when Grandma came. And miraculously, Emma decided she wanted that pony ride badly enough :). We took the girls to Thanksgiving Point and they got to visit the farm. They loved the goats, horses, and of course riding the ponies. I originally didn't have Grandma purchase a ride for Reese because she screams on carousels so I didn't want to waste her money on Reese. However, Reese watched Emma ride the pony and she kept saying, "I ride! I ride!" She got to ride it and it was so cute. Straight face, but excited :).

We just got to spend lots of time with Grandma which we normally don't get when we visit Arizona. She usually needs to work when we're down there, but this time we got 5 days with nothing but attention from Grandma!

Cousin Tamara's Baby Shower

My wonderful husband flew me down to Arizona to spend a whole weekend with cousin Tamara and go to her family baby shower that was planned. This was the weekend that we were all originally going to go down to AZ but since things didn't work out and we went during Easter, Cade flew me down to see Tamara anyway. It was so great being able to just hang out, go out to dinner, see their apartment, and mostly just chat and get to know each other even better.

Tamara and Eric picked me up from the airport Friday night and we went to a Mexican restaurant (which I LOVE Arizona mexican food so they spoiled me). We just got to talk a whole lot and catch up. Then Saturday we spent mostly at her mom's house getting things ready for the baby shower. Everything was done in pink AND blue because the never found out the gender during the pregnancy. They waited the whole 9 months to find out! That's amazing to me because I am so impatient! But the shower was so cute and done so well. We had lunch and lots of treats! It was fun to get to know a lot of family and friends of Tamara. Tammy and Dale came to the shower (Dale went off with all the guys out to eat), but then I drove back with them to Prescott and spent Sunday with my family. It was a little weird spending the night in Prescott without Cade and the girls :). But we went to church all together and ate Sunday dinner and took naps...a very low-key and relaxing Sunday which I never get these days.

Sunday night, Dale was so kind to take me all the way to Mesa so I could hang out and see Matt and Kelsie Egan's new place! They moved down there in October and so it was great to see them. They made me burgers and we just got to hang out and catch up. I love them and am so glad I got to spend that time with them!

Sunday night Kelsie drove me back to Tamara's and we spent Monday morning at the pool and eating lunch together. It was so warm and beautiful. And I went back to 45 degree weather...yuck! The whole trip was so much fun and I'm grateful for Cade and how important relationships are to him.

Now an update on Tamara and Eric's baby! They were officially due tomorrow (May 31st), but their bundle of joy decided to come two weeks early! They had a baby GIRL and named her Liberty Lynn Seigfried. She is so adorable and I can't wait to meet her in July!!!

Easter at the Close's

We were planning on visiting the Close side in the middle of April. But after discovering that Grandma Grandpa would have to work the whole time and Tara and the boys would all be back in Vegas at that time, we decided to pick up and leave spur of the moment and go down for Easter. It ended up being perfect. It was a shorter trip, but we got to see everyone and Emma and Ashur got to play lots! I love seeing those two together. They are so funny and just love playing with each other.

It was really fun to do Easter with everyone there. The kiddos got to color eggs and they even managed to not spill a single jar of coloring all over the kitchen. They had a lot of fun doing that. On Easter, the kids found their baskets and enjoyed all the goodies in them. But my favorite part was watching them do an Easter egg hunt. Especially the little ones. Reese and Taft were so dang cute. We let them loose in the backyard and they were pros at putting those eggs in their baskets. Minus the tiny detail that they would throw them in and got 100's of cracks all over :). All the kids enjoyed the hunt.

Cade and I like to watch the sunrise Easter morning and read scriptures about Christ being the light of the world. We talked about adding a "spiritual" tradition because a lot of Easter these days is all about the candy and eggs and not about Christ. I mean, there's nothing wrong with treats and egg hunts! I love them too, but it's fun to have a tradition that we can start the day talking about the true meaning of the holiday.

Here's some fun Easter Celebratory pictures...